Entertainment… It is

With a big multi starrer movie releasing on a festival, it is bound to create hype amongst the audience who are referred to fans or movie buffs. On one hand, the most recent Shahrukh Khan release “Happy New Year” is set to create new box office records with its grand collections. On other end, the film is being criticized as mindless, thoughtless and baseless output. Ironic, ain’t it?

So, the question that keeps coming to me is are we seriously entertainment deprived and don’t have options? Well, both yes and no. It strikes to me in a country of 125 crore people where more than 75% are struggling to fulfil the basic necessities of life, movies are a source of unwinding for them. The mass audience here has to make so much sense out of the daily life; they don’t come to a theatre to wrack their heads on director’s take on a social issue or witness highest order creativity. Films like these transfer the audience to a virtual beautiful world, generate a sense of hope and gives them a larger than life experience.

Talking about the collections, INR 300 Crore is the latest obsession of all the movie analysts and industry experts. Taking an average ticket size of INR 80 (Considering single screens and tier 4-5 towns), we need 3.75 crore people to get us to that figure. We are only expecting 0.03% population to come and see our movie to generate an amount that we are going ga ga about. However, a multi starrer movie recovers all its money even before it releases, through the distribution rights and in film advertisements. So, the money that we contribute in the form of tickets is a bonus for them.

Considering the so called intellectual well made movies which are high on both creative illustration and technical details like screenplay, cinematography and direction. What happens to them at box office is a completely different story – A Wednesday, Guzaarish, Soundtrack, Aamir, Listen Amaya are to name a few.

So, like any other business, the movie makers are producing where they see the money will come in automatically. So, how much ever we criticize these brainless releases, they are the ones who are bringing smiles on the faces of our fellow countrymen. Mass entertainers as we call them… they are in literal sense.

So if “ Kehte hain humko pyaar se India waale…” gets you grooving…Yenjoy and rest assured as it is not taking away your creative quotient or art quotient as they call it.